News

Tapping into Social Media to Learn About Candidates

These days, everyone has multiple social media accounts that they use to keep in touch with friends, illustrate their career goals and more. As a recruiter or an organization looking for the best talent, therefore, it’s important that you use and evaluate social media profiles to learn about your prospective employees. After all, this information can be critical to finding A-list workers for your firm.

“But it’s not just about checking a candidate’s timeline for angry rants or questionable photos — social platforms can also be a great recruiting tool,” as noted by Forbes. “According to Betterteam, nearly 95% of recruiters use social media to post and promote job openings, and 59% of employees say they chose their current workplace in part because of the company’s social media presence.”

Here are ways you can effectively use social media to learn about candidates:

First, you can learn more about candidate behavior. “The popularity of social media continues to grow both in personal and professional use, with a lot of the content staying around forever,” according to the publication. “Use social media platforms as both a medium for checking potential hires’ past post types and quality (for instance, have they posted anything that could harm your brand?), as well as finding fresh writing samples.”

Taking a look through a candidate’s social media can also unlock a lot about the individual’s personality. “Segmenting potential employees not only by their expertise but also by their personality traits is very important when recruiting creative roles,” according to Forbes. Therefore, you may want to examine candidate personalities through their profiles to gain this type of insight. “We’ve used social media targeting tools to find different archetypes for a more comprehensive recruiting process,” observed Carlos Machicao of Wild Pixel Media to Forbes.

Finally, you can use social media as a way to connect with potential workers and see who is truly excited to be part of your organization. “It’s important for us to see a potential hire engaging with our company or industry on social media. Rather than asking, ‘Are you familiar with our clients?’ we can know if they did their research and if they ‘like’ our clients by seeing if they’ve engaged online or not,” as noted by Jennifer Wentzo in an interview with Forbes.

In sum, social media will forever be an important aspect of the hiring process for organizations. By analyzing candidates’ profiles without being invasive, you can glean info on their behavior, personality traits and much more.